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Get Your Popcorn Ready! It's the First Ever White House Film Festival

The White House is hosting the first-ever Student Film Festival, featuring the work of more than a dozen young filmmakers who created short films celebrating the role of technology in the classroom.

Earlier this month, President Obama made his first movie on a trip to Buck Lodge Middle School in Adelphi Maryland. And on Friday, although we’re not showing the President’s movie, we might be showing yours.

On Friday, February 28, the White House is hosting the first-ever Student Film Festival, featuring the work of more than a dozen young filmmakers who created short films celebrating the role of technology in the classroom.

The Filmmaker-in-Chief was at Buck Lodge to celebrate progress on ConnectED, an ambitious project to connect 99% of American students to next-generation broadband and wireless technology within five years. In Adelphi, he announced that some of America’s largest companies answered the President’s call to action towards that goal by pledging more than $750 million in commitments to deliver cutting-edge technologies to classrooms, including devices, free software, teacher professional development, and home wireless connectivity.

Building on the President’s eagerness to connect students to technology, and his newfound interest in filmmaking, we’re excited to host the first-ever White House Student Film Festival. In November, we called for K-12 students around the country to create short films on the role of technology in their classroom, and students responded with nearly 3,000 entries. In collaboration with the American Film Institute, the White House will screen the finalists' works this Friday along with a star-studded cast including Kal Penn, Bill Nye, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Conan O’Brien.

In addition to the celebration of the student films and the President’s remarks, FOX and National Geographic Channel will treat the attendees to a sneak peek of the first episode of the upcoming television series, "Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey," which celebrates the importance of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).

We hope you share the President’s excitement for film-making, and his desire to give all American students the tools they need to stay on the cutting edge.